


Intensity of Night

by spookyawards_archivist



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-10-01
Updated: 2003-10-01
Packaged: 2019-04-27 07:20:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14420406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spookyawards_archivist/pseuds/spookyawards_archivist
Summary: Angsty, angsty Mulder, as he 'willingly walks into the darkness'.





	Intensity of Night

**Author's Note:**

> Note from alice ttlg, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Spooky Awards](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Spooky_Awards), and was moved to the AO3 as part of the Open Doors project in 2018. I tried to reach out to all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are the creator and would like to claim this work, please contact me using the e-mail address on [SpookyAwards' collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/spookyawards/profile).

 

Intensity of Night

## Intensity of Night

### by Starla Dear

Title: The Intensity of Night  
Author: Starla Dear Category: V/A  
Rating: PG  
Keywords: Mulder Angst  
Spoilers: Ummm, the only spoiler (Ascension) is in the summary, oops.  
Archiving: I would be honored beyond measure. 

Disclaimer: I don't own the X-Files. If I did, I would be high on life and DD would have spent a lot of time on the casting couch! ;) 

Summary: Angsty, angsty Mulder, as he `willingly walks into the darkness'. To me, this takes place when Scully was abducted and he's realizing how much she means to him, how alone he is. 

* * *

I am intense. I've become the intensity of night, been conquered with the force it. It's a living thing, this darkness. And I've spent an eternity within it. 

It whips and swirls, rushes and winds around me and inside of me. Its tendrils weave through my soul, reducing my insides to ash, leaving an empty shell of flesh. It is relentless as it pushes its way through tissue and bone, tunneling through the weak armor of skin and easily carving out what is left of me. I do not resist as it eats me alive, devours what little I have of worth. I am unwilling to fight it. I am becoming the darkness. I am melting into it, my spirit and will completely miscible in the dark energy in which I actively drown. 

It is fire, lightless fire. This darkness is heat and pain, burning. It singes and scalds its way through me, decimating all that it touches. 

It is a knife, a razor. It cuts with impunity as all traces of hope bleed away in a thick, red river. Flesh is carved from spirit; the heart dissected from the body. 

My life has is this vibrant darkness. I stand alone in the night, welcoming the violence of the storm as it tears me apart, little by little. Somehow leaving the physical desperately intact while destroying what remains of the soul. Blood and fire - they are all that I have. And I no longer have the strength to hold on to even them; I no longer want to. I yield to the onslaught, become that which assaults me. 

* * *

I am in need. I am need. Always requiring more than I have. This is more than desire, more than craving. This is necessity. 

I longed for answers, before. The questions devoured me with unwavering ferocity. They ate at my soul, ravaged my mind. My thoughts were lost to the quest that plagued me. Where. Why. How. Such simple questions. Questions with no answers. At least none that were given to me. 

I wanted to move, to keep moving. I wanted to run from the darkness, the nothingness that seemed to search me out. I had to chase after mystery, hunt my truth. Once, I couldn't stand still. Now, I cannot move. 

I desired, wanted, hoped - but these words mean nothing to me now. I no longer recognize them. What are they in this swirling current? They drift away unnoticed. I know only need now, the necessity of a harbor, an anchor in this miasma of darkness and pain. My need is for an autumncolored shelter, a small, firm stronghold, and warm, sweetscented refuge. Without this, I have been lost, swept away in the tempest. 

* * *

I am in pain. I am lost in it, filled with it, consumed by it. It has replaced all that was destroyed by the fire. It's more than physical and more than emotional. It is. 

It is everything. 

It's fluid, this pain. It follows in the wake of the darkness, filling in empty spaces left by the night. It eases into the cracks of my mind, fills the vacuum in my body, slides along divisions of flesh and spirit. 

Where there was nothing, there is pain. Where there's no pain, there is nothing now. 

I am burning, bleeding. It is that which makes me real, that which keeps me alive. It alone is the reason I'm not washed away in the swiftly rushing darkness, in the living night. 

* * *

I am in love. A love I was too foolish to recognize, too frightened to name. It is that which brought me here - this love that has forsaken me. I spend these endless nights calling to her, crying out for her, screaming her name into the void. And I hear only the echoes of my own voice in reply. 

I had light. It was a part of me before. More powerful than the night, stronger than the pull of the dark matter. I had a hope, a path, a star by which to navigate. 

I had a harbor, a safe, red-gold haven with white hot courage and cool blue comfort. I was tethered to it, bound to it, with no fear of being cut adrift. I was protected within my refuge. 

I had a balm, a soothing liniment for the pain. I had a cure for the cuts and burns, the blood and fire. She was healing. She was wholeness and hope. She was strength. 

I'm drawn to her, bound by invisible tethers to one who is unreachable - to her. And I am consumed by a desire that will not be fulfilled. It overtakes me - this empty shell of me. This longing is to be filled with something other than darkness, to feel something other than pain, to know something more than need. I could be more. I could be something, anything. 

But I am forsaken, lost, abandoned. There is nothing left now - nothing but blood and fire, pain and need. I have no anchor, no hope. I step into the night, eager for its hollow embrace. I present my sacrifice, cast myself into the gaping chasm, surrender my soul to the abyss. I belong only to the night now, exist only in the raging darkness of that which I have become. 

**END**

* * *

Author's Notes - Thanks, again and again to Sarah, who reads  
for me and encourages me. I am sure this is better because  
of you. This is inspired by the Mulder Torture in Season Two  
and the Indigo Girls' `Blood and Fire'. If you listen to  
the song, you won't have any trouble spotting the  
references.

Feedback: I'd love it if you would. I won't even hold it against you if you tell me to go get some Prozac.   
  


#### If you enjoyed this story, please send feedback to Starla Dear


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